Justice Can't Emerge Until Fear Is Defeated

Jim Spencer

September 24, 2002|By JIM SPENCER Daily Press

Two days ago, on a warm, clear Sunday afternoon, the boys and girls of Newport News' East End lost a little more of their innocence. Some parents brought their kids to the rite of passage. Others wandered up by themselves. Some sat beneath crime-scene tape near the corner of 16th Street and Garden Drive. A few lounged astride bicycles.

No matter how they arrived or how long they stayed, the youngsters stared at the sheet and then the bag that covered the freshly slain body of 19-year-old Jhirmaine Kearney. Kearney's remains lay in the parking lot of an apartment complex for hours, plenty of time for the neighborhood kids to learn their lessons.

One observer likened it to children watching TV. Only here, death, not life, imitated art.

Over the weekend, three gunfights in the East End claimed three men, including Kearney. Three other people -- two men and a woman -- were wounded.

Bloody mayhem turned mundane with its frequency.

A reporter overheard a girl giggle nervously as she looked at Kearney's body.

"You shouldn't be laughing," her companion scolded.

"It's not funny," the giggler agreed. "Someone's dead."

Everyone died a little in this debacle. Those who didn't give up the ghost gave up hope. Police scrambled for leads in one of the most violent episodes in the city's history. But few were forthcoming.

"We cannot protect a community if the community won't participate," Newport News Police Capt. Marvin Evans said Monday.

Hundreds of people were around at the time of Kearney's killing Sunday afternoon, Evans said. Almost no one wanted to be seen talking publicly to police. Some answered questions in a post-shooting canvass. Others called later with anonymous tips.

The same thing was true Friday night at 23rd Street and Chestnut Avenue, where police believe two young men shot each other to death and a third person who knew the shooters took a bullet in the leg.

These guys were having it out in response to yet another shooting that happened an hour or so before at 48th Street and Rochester Court. Everybody seemed to know each other, at least by reputation. These may have been the usual suspects in a small cabal of East End outlaws. But, said Newport News homicide supervisor Sgt. Jim Williamson, "We can have intelligence all day long. Unless people come forward, we can't take anyone off the street."

At the same time, if you live in a community where kids must spend Sunday afternoon gazing at a body bag, you might legitimately ask how much difference participation in the criminal justice system could make. At least one witness has told police that Kearney's killers wore bandannas that covered the lower parts of their faces. That sounds like an assassination squad.

The best news coming out of the Friday-Sunday carnage was that only one innocent bystander took a bullet. The bad news is that she was doing nothing more aggressive than walking to her car after visiting her sister.

The worst news, though, is that police think all three of the weekend's gunfights are related and that each amounted to a form of retaliation for the one that preceded it.

It seems pretty clear that drugs played a role. The criminal records of two of the three dead men -- Kearney and 23-year-old Jamone Engle -- show multiple convictions for possession of cocaine. The third victim, 19-year-old Douglas Deon Watson, had only an underage purchase of alcohol on his rap sheet. But Watson apparently had a gun when, police say, he and Engle shot each other to death.

The cops won't name the wounded. Evans said one of them was carrying a baby when his assailants came after him. He managed to put the baby down before being shot in the back.

"In these types of crimes, people have their own agenda," said Evans, "and their own sense of justice."

From the safety of the suburbs the idea of shooting at a guy carrying a baby sounds inhuman. Imagine being a child where the inhumanity has moved from prospect to practice.

Even as Evans and Williamson bemoaned the fact that so few people in the East End wanted to testify as witnesses to these and other crimes, Evans also admitted, "We can't guard everyone 24 hours a day."

For the community, that admission represents a Catch-22.

The East End will never be safe until its residents step up to help prosecute criminals. But no one will step up as long as they fear retaliation.

Only one thing seems sure as youngsters congregate on sunny afternoons to look at dead bodies.

Regardless of their ages, pretty soon there will be no children here.

Jim Spencer may be reached at 247-4731 or by e-mail at jlspencer@dailypress.com